가다머 해석학의 실용주의적 읽기

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to inquire into the structure of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in light of his major notions of ‘communicative truth’ and ‘the constraint of Wirkungsgeschichte,’ and seek for the way it can avoid the relativistic implications in terms of Deweyan pragmatist view. Despite the radical insights into the conundrums of the traditional objectivism, Gadamer’s hermeneutics does not seem to have made the case against the suspicion of relativism to its success. First, ‘the constraint of Wirkungsgeschichte’ which comes out from history and tradition does not seem successful in that it has to be a parochial notion which holds good only in the same cultural sphere in question. Second, despite Gadamer’s claim that interpretation does not fall into relativism because interpretations are influenced by ‘the constraint of Wirkungsgeschichte,’ his view tends to be seen more as a form of relativism that puts more emphasis on contextuality. I suggest that for Gadamer’s notion of ‘the constraint of Wirkungsgeschichte’ to make a working constraint, while avoiding the suspicion of contexualism or arbitrariness, it needs to be supplemented by an additional notion of ‘experiential commonality’ which underlies all aspects of human experience, part of which is interpretation. In this regard, I argue that Dewey’s conception of ‘organic commonality’ may well serve this purpose. If this attempt is successfully done, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics would take a form of modified relativism, which offers a more experiential and comprehensive account of interpretation as a form of human experience.